Roy Jones Jr. calls Hopkins a “Shark” and a “Bottom feeder”

By Boxing News - 03/24/2010 - Comments

Image: Roy Jones Jr. calls Hopkins a “Shark” and a “Bottom feeder”By Jim Dower: Roy Jones Jr. (54-6, 40 KO’s) was in top form talking to the media, saying this about his April 3rd opponent Bernard Hopkins: “He is a bottom feeder, riding around waiting for somebody to die and think he will get a feed…He’s waiting around for someone to die and then he’ll bite into it. If something is dead, he’ll try to taste it. If something is alive, he doesn’t want any part of it. If something is close to dead, he’ll try to eat it…He wanted to wait until I was close to done. He didn’t have anywhere else to go and now he thinks he’ll get revenge and then ride out into the sunset.”

Jones, 41, beat Hopkins by a 12 round decision 17-years-ago in 1993 by the judges’ scores of 116-112, 116-112 and 116-112. Jones isn’t the same fighter now than he was back then, however, and has been beaten by Antonio Tarver, Glen Johnson, Joe Calzaghe and Danny Green in the past six years.

Jones may not enough left to beat the 45-year-old Hopkins, who appears to be still fighting at a very high level and is probably good enough to hold down one or more of the light heavyweight titles if he so wished. Hopkins might not be the best light heavyweight in the division, as many people think that Chad Dawson, Tavoris Cloud or Jean Pascal should hold that title, but Hopkins is very close to being the best.

For one reason or another, Hopkins and Jones weren’t able to put together a fight until both of them were into their 40s. The bad thing about that now is that the fight isn’t nearly as popular or as interesting as it would be had they at least tried to put together a fight 10 years or more. Now, it’s debatable how interested the boxing public is in this fight.

Things weren’t helped any that Jones was stopped in the 1st round in his last fight against Green in December. That alone should have been enough for the Hopkins-Jones fight not to take place. The fighter that Jones needed to be fighting now is Green, preferably not in Green’s home of Australia. Jones needed to avenge that defeat, show that he could handle Green’s power without folding, and then possibly looked at fighting Hopkins.

Also, the Hopkins-Jones fight is being priced a little too high for the popularity of these guys in my view. At $50, this fight is a really steep price to pay for a Pay-Per-View bout that is for practical purposes a glorified old timer’s fight. This isn’t like watching the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin. These are two great fighters, who have lost some of their ability and are on the decline.

I know there’s some sentimental boxing fans out there, but I think Hopkins and Jones would have done better to put a cheaper price tag for this fight so that more boxing fans might show interest and bite at purchasing the card.



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